Now I know why I rarely open threads : whenever I manage to get an answer, it's usually BS for the first page.
Thanks to Steve and Martin/Alucard, we're +/- back to seriousness, though still not much on-topic
Interesting comparison, as there were a few french-singing singers that played in movies
But Montand was a huge actor, and at one point later in his life, he was only an actor. Singer Patrick Bruel is also a very credible actor as well. Jacques Dutronc was OK in movies as well. Eddy Mitchel (Halliday's rival and good buddy/friend) is as good an actor as he was a singer .
However, Johnny never was a good actor and only was good playing his own role in movies such as including the hilarious Rock'n Roll with Guillaume Canet or in Lellouch's "Salaud, On T'aime". altogether Johnny played in 30 movies, including a couple for Jean-Luc Goddard (where he met & married actress Natalie Baye and had a kid with her)
This was not a one-way lane, as a lot of actors also try to have a recording career as wll. A very permeable frontier, it seems
Generally, if they're "big in France", that also means in Belgium, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Canada (Quebec anyways) and having some resonnance in Africa.
Belgo-Italian Salvatore Adamo is huge in Japan (Johnny is only big there ), and considered like a semi-god. Both had recorded a few of their "hits" in Japanese too.
Françoise Hardy was almost bigger in the UK than she was in France, FTM
Cloclo is on a different scale and he died early (as did Joe Dassin) electrocuted in his bath: something electric fell in his tub. His death helped shaping the electric safety rules. He was not a rocker at all, catering only to women's tastes and was often ridiculed by males... However he also spawned a fair amount of look-alikes. You could view the Cloclo phenomenon as more of an ABBA thing, as both were in sorts "very disco"
You wouldn't believe how his Japan or Philippine-pressed singles go for in conventions. Probably as much as Philippine-pressed singles Beatles singles, if not more.
In a lot of French record convention, you'll have at least one dude dealing almost nothing but Halliday stuff
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